A working SRSG, FINALLY!

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Steven Ward by way of Terry Fritz <teslalist-at-qwest-dot-net>" <srward16-at-hotmail-dot-com>

I guess this is a follow up to my other topic on blown fuses ;)

Ok, the coil is absolutely amazing!  And very scary at the same time ;)

Here is what i did

1), put back 3 leaves into each shunt, for an estimated 100ma output from 
the 15/60NST.  If this was the cure, well then, Crow Leader, you are THE MAN!

2) played with phasing some more.  When it finally worked, it seems to have 
the same characteristics as before.  This leads to my conclusion that: 
(quote from Ken)

238uF -at- 120 volts and 60Hz = an impedance of 11.15 Ohms, or 10.75A of
reactive current. That sounds like half of what your fuse is even rated. Is
your power factor really this bad, or is it saturating? Have you tried to
measure it, or looked at it on a scope? How did your transformer behave
before you modified it?

If it was really as easy as removing shunts and getting more power, France
would have done this at the factory and saved a bundle by making half size
transformers with the same power rating.

KEN

(end of quote)

Ken was right, and my silly NST was saturating ;)  It looks like i was just 
over its limit.  Now the coil will happily run on a 20A fused line up to 
120V (and maybe more, but i didnt dare to try!).  Now if you excuse me, i 
will go eat my words.....


One more general question.  It seems as i crank the voltage up, i need to 
adjust the phase so that it discharges the cap sooner than need be, so that 
the safety doesnt fire.  This in turn limits the amount of power i can 
supply to the primary coil.  So with my 15/100 supply and a 16kv geek MMC 
(i know, im running it close!) what safety gap setting should i use?  Right 
now its set to exactly 11/32".  Before i had it set to 1/4", but that was 
too wimpy ;)  The electrodes are 1/4" hex couplers, so they have a large 
flat surface, rather than round or pointy.  Ive seen other RSGs with like a 
1" gap spacing.  As far as i see, im running a rather small gap.  Does 
anyone know what i SHOULD set it for to protect my caps and transformer?  I 
also have a safety on the transformer.  Its set to 3/16" on each gap, and 
it never fires.  So maybe i have some headroom to open up that safety 
across the spark gap?  That would really make performance outstanding!  I 
feel confident that i will at least hit 5 feet, maybe 6 feet with this coil.
Right now im limited to about 4 feet at best (since im in the garage).  And 
the 4 footers are BRIGHT!

Steve Ward

PS, i guess my day is ok, the working coil evens out the fried channel on 
my scope :o \